Presidential Power - Cold war interventionism

Dwight D. Eisenhower sought the presidency because he disliked the
assaults on what he perceived, in his words, as "the
President's constitutional rights, in peacetime, to deploy and
dispose American forces according to his best judgment and without the
specific approval of Congress." He regarded those rights as
"unassailable" and wanted to thwart politicians in his own
party, the Republicans, eager to diminish executive authority. He also had
a Whig like conception of the office based on his conviction that Franklin
Roosevelt and Truman had upset the proper balance between the branches of
government at the expense of Congress. So, despite his determination to
protect executive authority, contemporaries viewed him as opposed to
aggrandizing the presidency.

In practice, Eisenhower, like Jefferson, did not allow abstract
considerations to stand in the way of actions he perceived appropriate. To
end the Korean War, for example, he informed the North Koreans through
several channels that he would employ atomic weapons against them if they
refused an armistice. He acted with similar determination when
conservatives in his own party, led by Senator John W. Bricker of Ohio,
tried, with a proposed constitutional amendment, to eliminate the
president's power to make executive agreements. Eisenhower
contended the measure would cripple executive authority in world affairs.
"The President," he insisted, "must not be deprived
of his historic position as spokesman for the nation in its relations with
other countries." His opposition proved critical in the
amendment's narrow defeat.

When the French, involved in an anticolonial war in Southeast Asia, begged
the president to intervene to save troops beleaguered in a fortress in
northern Vietnam, despite his deep anticommunist convictions, Eisenhower
refused. "Part of my fundamental concept of the Presidency,"
he explained, "is that we have a constitutional government and only
when there is a sudden, unforeseen emergency should the President put us
into war without congressional sanction." Despite this perspective
and contrary to what many assumed, Eisenhower was not a dove. He was
willing to use armed force in Vietnam but only on his own terms.

At the same time, Eisenhower expanded use of the CIA as a weapon in covert
Cold War armed ventures. With secret anticommunist operations he put aside
the constitutional restraints on the presidency he professed to value. He
ordered the CIA to topple Mohammed Mossadegh, Iran's nationalist
prime minister, which with local help it did. Eisenhower also employed
covert violence to overthrow the legally elected president of Guatemala,
Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, a populist he viewed as a communist. These
episodes reveal that despite what contemporary pundits perceived as
passive qualities in Eisenhower's leadership, when determined to
attain his own foreign policy objectives, he would use a heavy hand.

Eisenhower exercised his power as commander in chief more openly when the
People's Republic of China threatened to attack Chiang
Kai-shek's Nationalist government on Taiwan (Formosa). When the
mainland communists bombed Quemoy and Matsu, two offshore islands held by
the Nationalists, his military advisers urged retaliatory strikes. Ike
said no, indicating that against a major foe he would not use the war
power lightly. Although Eisenhower assumed that in this situation as
commander in chief he had authority to act on his own, he asked Congress
for consent to deal with any emergency that might subsequently arise in
the Taiwan Strait. He wanted to avoid the divisive debate that had
followed Truman's intervention in Korea. Congress responded with a
joint resolution authorizing him to use the armed forces "as he
deemed necessary" to protect Taiwan and other islands in friendly
hands. In voting this blank check, Congress diminished its own war power,
enhanced that of the president, and opened a door for later presidents to
seek similar authority.

Meanwhile, with a secret CIA operation the president had launched a
program to foment rebellion in Eastern European countries that would
liberate them from Soviet domination. Then, in October 1956, as he
campaigned for reelection, students in Budapest, Hungary, revolted. When
Soviet troops crushed the uprising, Eisenhower admitted he could do
nothing tangible to aid them without risking a major war, thus recognizing
the limitations on executive power. His decision also reflected what he
had stated many times, that he would "never be guilty of any kind
of action that can be interpreted as war until Congress, which has the
constitutional authority, says so."

The foreign relations power also became an issue in a concurrent crisis.
It began when Egyptian strongman Gamal Abdel Nasser seized the Suez Canal
from its European owners. On 29 October 1956, Israeli troops, followed by
British and French forces, invaded Egypt without informing their American
ally. An angry Eisenhower condemned the attack, but when the Soviets
threatened intervention, he ordered a partial mobilization of the armed
forces. In addition, with economic and diplomatic pressure, he compelled
the British, French, and Israelis to withdraw from Egypt. In this
situation, he exercised his foreign policy power unilaterally, swiftly,
and decisively.

Next, fearing that the Russians might still resort to force in the Middle
East, Eisenhower moved to deter them. As during the Taiwan Strait crisis,
he asked Congress to authorize him to employ the armed forces to defend
the "independence and integrity" of Middle Eastern countries
menaced by "communist armed aggression." After two months of
debate, the legislators voted him another blank check, this one termed the
Eisenhower Doctrine, that endorsed his role as a global, anti-Marxist
policeman. A year later, the president applied the doctrine indirectly to
a civil war in Lebanon. In his only overt intervention, in July 1958, on
his authority as commander in chief, he ordered troops to invade Lebanon.
Insisting he had not committed an act of war, Eisenhower argued he had
acted within his constitutional authority and in keeping with executive
precedents. Critics, though, maintained he had initiated a presidential
war. At the same time, he used the CIA in a secret intervention in
Indonesia designed to crumble the regime of Achmad Sukarno, considered too
cozy with communists. Popular sentiment could speak less clearly on
Eisenhower's overt and covert policy toward a left-wing
revolutionary government in Cuba headed by Fidel Castro. At his
discretion, the CIA clandestinely launched commando strikes against
Castro, hatched schemes to assassinate him, and planned, with Cuban exiles
in Florida, an invasion of the island. Before Eisenhower could unleash
this operation, his presidency ended.

Analysts differ in their assessments of Eisenhower as president and his
use of power in foreign affairs. Some say he delegated too much of his
authority while others portray him as a strong executive who exercised his
power with a hidden hand. He claimed to have had the final word in every
major foreign policy issue and hence had served as an activist president.
He also believed that he had curbed executive aggrandizement. Yet, through
his aggressive anticommunist ventures, his covert operations, and the
global reach of American power, under him the power of the president in
foreign affairs as commander in chief continued to rise.

During the presidential election campaign of 1960, John F. Kennedy
announced he would "be the Chief Executive in every sense of the
word" and that the president should "exercise the fullest
powers of his office—all that are specified and some that are
not." He also carried into office a preference for dealing with
foreign over domestic affairs. For instance, he devoted most of his
inaugural address to the Cold War. "Domestic policy," he
later repeated, "can only defeat us, foreign policy can kill
us."

Into his official family Kennedy brought intellectual young zealots
"full of belligerence," as one of them later remarked, who
admired the concept of the tough, activist executive. With them he quickly
immersed himself in the details of foreign policy, deciding at the outset
to continue Eisenhower's covert plan to crush Cuba's Castro.
Most of Kennedy's intimate advisers backed the venture. Among the
few who knew of it, Senator J. William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations, objected. He pointed out that "the
Castro regime is a thorn in the flesh, but it is not a dagger in the
heart." Dismissing this advice, Kennedy continued the practice of
using the CIA to harass Cubans and prepare for an invasion, which, without
the consent of Congress, he launched on 17 April 1961, on Cuba's
south shore at the Bay of Pigs. It turned into a fiasco, for which the
president publicly accepted blame. Despite the bloody blunder, polls
showed that his popularity shot up. In a private discussion of the
disaster, he asked, "It really is true that foreign affairs is the
only important issue for a President to handle, isn't
it?…Who gives a shit if the minimum wage is $1.15 or $1.25 in
comparison to something like this?" As confidants noted, Castro
then became a personal affront, an obsession that Kennedy transmuted into
a threat to American security. He persevered, therefore, in covert efforts
to overthrow the dictator.

At the same time, Kennedy had to deal with the Berlin question. Soviet
premier Nikita Khrushchev renewed demands that Allied occupiers depart the
city and set a deadline with an implied threat of war if not met. With a
determination to show toughness, Kennedy prepared for possible
hostilities. He expanded the armed forces, ordered reservists to active
duty, and asked Congress for an additional $3 billion in military
spending, which it granted. When this crisis passed, he again focused on
Castro.

State Department officials and others reported the presence of Soviet
troops and missiles in Cuba. Kennedy warned that if the communist buildup
menaced American security, he would take forceful action. He said that
"as President and Commander in Chief" he had full authority
to act on his own. But he did request Congress to endorse the use of arms.
It agreed overwhelmingly with a joint resolution. On 14 October 1962, when
a U-2 surveillance plane reported Soviet launching pads in Cuba with
medium-range missiles targeted on American cities, the crisis deepened.
Initially, as his closest advisers urged, the president wanted to respond
with air strikes on Cuba and even possibly on the Soviet Union. After six
days of discussion, he chose to ring Cuba with a naval blockade he called
a quarantine. If the Soviets challenged it, the world would face its first
nuclear war. Except for a few friendly members whom the president had
informed of his decisions, Congress had no role in this war scare.
Fortunately, Khrushchev backed down and the crisis passed. With toughness,
the president appeared to have won a great diplomatic victory.

Kennedy's admirers praised his behavior as brilliant, as an example
of "genuine statesmanship" that in thirteen critical days
"dazzled the world," and as the greatest achievement of his
presidency. They cited his conduct as validation for supreme presidential
control over foreign policy and war-making in the nuclear age. Skeptics,
and even several close advisers, thought differently. They perceived his
rattling of nuclear arms as irresponsible and reckless. One critic
commented that he risked "blowing the world to hell in order to
sweep a few Democrats into office" in forthcoming congressional
elections. Others questioned the wisdom of placing so much power in the
hands of one man. As for the public, that power did not bother it much.
Polls showed that after the crisis, Kennedy's approval rating
climbed from 61 to 84 percent. Later, when Soviet sources revealed the
presence of nuclear weapons in Cuba, Kennedy's conduct proved more
prudent than either the public or detractors had realized.

Elsewhere, Kennedy continued his armed interventionism, as in the
Dominican Republic to get rid of an aging dictator and to aid
Joaquín Belaguer, a leader he thought would edge the republic
toward democracy. When elections brought to power a left-wing
intellectual, Kennedy refused to help him because he saw him as tainted
with communism. As in other instances, the personal perception of a
president, as much as policy considerations, governed use of the foreign
policy power.

This happened also in Southeast Asia, where Kennedy accepted
Eisenhower's domino theory that if communism prevailed in one
country, as in Laos or Vietnam, it would spread over the entire region.
Kennedy believed that if he tolerated communism there, he could not win
reelection. So, he poured economic and military assistance into the
anticommunist Republic of Vietnam. In addition, he sent in military
advisers, who ferried troops into battle against local communists called
Vietcong and against northern communists. Ultimately, he committed more
than 16,000 troops to the anticommunist side in the civil wars in Laos and
Vietnam.

Kennedy left a mixed legacy. Strong-presidency believers praise him as a
vigorous, charismatic leader who understood the true art of statecraft.
Other appraisers charge him with crisis mongering, escalating the arms
race, and being enamored with military power. His unilateral use of power
abroad, his conviction that he must make his mark primarily in foreign
affairs, and his belief in an exceptional authority in those affairs,
reflected the prevailing public approval of an expansive presidential
power.